12 Miles Below

I handed the clan lord my rifle. He took it with heavy hands, the armor clearly doing most of the work. We’d laid him out against a tunnel wall, somewhere a little higher ground. Water slapped against this armor’s legs, doing nothing more than causing some more foam. Further ahead it fell down in a waterfall, joining the rest of the flood to the central whirlpool. During our scheming Atius seemed to gain lucidity again, no longer going in and out of a coma. Stabilizing. The Deathless healing factor must be working overtime on his body, which was good news for us. Bad news was that it wasn't good enough to get him back on his feet, just awake and aware.

From here, he had a good enough vantage point on the whole chamber, if he limped a bit into view. He wasn’t supposed to get anywhere in sight for our plan, but Windrunner had made a good point about having last resort options available.

Against a Feather, our Deathless wasn’t in any shape to fight. But the rank and file machines were vulnerable to rifles, and those didn’t need finesse or any kind of health to use. Point and shoot. A few extra dead machines was better than them running around for the rest of us. We planed to thin out the majority of the machines Avalis could throw at us, but there's no way we could nail every crawling scraphead lurking about. The rest of the knights were waiting for the signal to storm in, hidden on the temple ground floor. They'd deal with the rest, as soon as we got the drop on To'Sefit. That was the one Feather who had the ordinance to wipe out entire armies of knights if she landed a good hit.

“Haven’t used one… of these for some time now, lad.” He coughed, hands still going through old motions to check over the weapon. The make and model was some Undersider standard, but a rifle’s a rifle.

Windrunner knelt next to him. “You shouldn’t push yourself too hard, my lord. The Winterscar’s plan has good chances of catching To’Sefit’s location. I think we’ll do fine if we get the drop on her first. Trust us.”

He watched Windrunner, staying quiet. Talking was still difficult for him, black red blood stained his gray short beard last I’d seen before we put a helmet on him. Breathing underwater wasn’t something Deathless had powers for. Armor had no issue with something like that however.

He triggered the safety off and gave a nod. “Go. Don’t waste time.”

We went.

The plan was pretty simple all put together. We’d snuck through the tunnel systems, spreading ourselves around the central room. Once we were all in position, I’d trigger one of our grenades and have the armors drop the jamming signal in the area.

A neat pile of discarded relic plates had been left behind in another tunnel, coincidentally all these plates had the magnetized location bugs Avalis had tried using. They were all still fully functional, so once the jamming dropped, Avalis would see their location.

A bit of smack talk to make it look like we’d screwed up our grand plan, and a healthy amount of paranoid threat would have him shoot first, ask questions never.

The real question in all this was Wrath. We could leave her with Atius, though any focused machine assault would break through the single rifle we’d left him. And he wasn’t running anywhere from his seat.

We’d debated hiding Wrath somewhere, but that was also just as bad. If she got swiped, To’Avalis would call off everything and run with his winnings. He wasn’t after us, he wanted Wrath. We were the annoyances in his way.

So she stayed in the sack, tied up on my back. Safest place we had, and that wasn’t saying much.

The moment the jamming ended, To’Sefit opened up on our decoys without any monologue or taunts and the battle was on.

I’d thought she might be hiding somewhere sneaky, like the very top of the tower here, or under the whirlpool somehow. Both locations where she could open fire anywhere in the area. Turns out, she’d been hiding behind a wall on one side of the area. Avalis must have decided putting her in more obvious spots would have been spotted, so he found another spot where she could reign fire on anything in the room.

Closest to her was Captain Sagrius. Second closest was myself, and third would be Windrunner. Kidra ended up on exactly the wrong side of the location, which meant she was on Avalis duty, waiting for him to show up and respond as backup.

Sagrius and I leaped out of our hiding spots, landing hard into the pool. This close to the edge, the water flow was fast but shallow, coming up halfway to our knees here. Far less than the tunnels. Easy enough to traverse in armor, likely deadly for anyone on foot.

Our job was to keep To'Sefit focused on us while the assassins in the walls snuck up behind on her.

To’Sefit was just as quick as we were, turning her fractals around and blasting away. Journey’s HUD showed me firing lines where the occult plates were aimed at. It wasn’t a singular line, more a cone of possible range based on prior combat log footage. So long as we were close enough and had visual contact with To’Sefit, we’d know where she was aiming. That was going to be our main defense against her, along with Father’s shoutouts over comms.

Sagrius raised a rifle and opened fire. The bullets zipped past, not aimed at the Feather herself but instead on her plates.

That's our main weapon against her. Occult fractals were pattern based, anything that disturbed the pattern in any way caused the whole thing to stop working. Bullet holes did a great job of that. And her plates weren't shielded. Likely she never expected to have to deal with soldiers getting this close to her.

In seconds, running Father's combat engram, Sagrius had taken out four of her panels.

The beam she’d sent my direction didn’t get anywhere close to me, and a short juke to the side made sure she wouldn’t land any other shots. The one sent to Sagrius forced the armor to come to a halt in order to survive the barrage as he rained bullet fire down.

Windrunner was sprinting through tunnels, trying to eliminate any of the machine backup on the way. Kidra was doing the same on the other side, though she'd stay hidden in the darkness until Avalis showed his face.

We were doing a great job as a distraction. Or rather, Sagrius was. To'Sefit's eyes turned to the walking armor and fixated. “You.”

Sagrius didn’t answer. The engram running his motions didn’t include any speech. Only destruction. He fired off more bullets, but the Feather had fanned her plates to flow behind her, where she could protect them with her staff. The engram dropped the rifle, letting the straps hold it in place. A knife was drawn out in a signature halo flourish, ending in a reverse grip. Shoulders hunched, the charge continued.

I also reoriented myself after that beam, having been forced to take a few steps too close to the edge, keeping a hand on my knightbreaker. Then realized belatedly that To’Sefit hadn’t missed her shot on me at all: She’d wanted me to jump closer to the edge.

A giant metal bird emerged from under the whirlpool at the center of the room, water breaking apart into floating droplets as the metal wings expanded out before me, a talon reaching out. Not a bad place to hide that scraphead, come to think of it. Sensors couldn't punch through the water there, so of course Avalis abused that. In hindsight, I'm not sure why we were so convinced the bird was hiding somewhere topside looking to swoop down on someone.

All of that passed through my head in a flash as I stood before the massive bird of prey with it's metal feathers outstretched, water droplets flying everywhere. The next instant it had whisked me off my feet in one large talon, squeezing both Wrath and I up with it.

There’s where the plan goes to scrapshit.

The momentum took us both into one of the walls, rocks breaking apart as the creature slammed me against everything. Journey’s shields flared out, stopping most of the damage.

Against a few hundred pounds of angry metal bird, the old wall wasn’t enough to put a full stop to the speed. The rest of the machine sunk into the wall, force dispersing as the bird easily broke halfway into the wall in a cloud of kicked dust. Without stopping, it leaped off the rubble, high into the air, soaring away between the tower pillars with me in its grip.

I got my senses back under control and tapped the mirror fractal. I’d been in vice grips before, Fido learned it was a bad idea, and soon this bird was going to learn the same lesson.

The moment the occult pulsed around me, the bird threw me straight up into the air and out of its talon, right as the wraiths manifested around me.

A massive gust of wind flowed behind as it flapped its wings under me. I’d have thought simple wind wouldn’t push an entire armor further into the air, and was proved horribly wrong.

Further up I went, spinning into a chaotic tumble upside down against gravity. The soul trance kept my sight focused, though I could tell my body was getting incredibly disoriented. The further I retreated from my body, the more lucid things grew around me, and my mind grew more clear. Wrath’s straps were being put through the test, but so far they were holding. The acceleration up into the air was bleeding away as gravity finally took control again, so whatever it was that this glorified metal murder chicken was doing to the air, the effects were temporary.

It’s coming for another pass! Wrath sent out to me, violet eye open, locked on the bird even as we twisted around uncontrollably in the air.

The metal beast flew right past me, massive wings beating against more than just the air. There was some kind of force it was pushing against in the occult sight, but I had no concept for it. I couldn’t tell what it was. The metal feathers began to glow occult blue on their edges and those I recognized immediately. Every single one of the shorter floating feathers were occult blades, while the larger ones handled the flight.

It reached the apex of its ascent into the air, now far above me. The wings expanded majestically out, then clapped together with a resonating boom. A hundred occult blades were sent soaring straight at my flailing body.

If I had been a regular knight, I’d have been far too disoriented to notice what was going on, let alone mount any kind of defense from becoming a pincushion. I think even a Deathless would have a difficult time surviving this kind of assault, unless they had the right spells to deal with it.

But neither of those had the soul trance nor a paranoid amount of shield fractals inscribed on every angle of the armor. And I did.

The blades flashed in my direction, twelve on an intercept course while the rest would harmlessly fill the air around me. I didn’t focus on anything else - in midair with no leverage, trying to move was a wasted effort. I put every bit of focus on the occult instead.

Twelve small occult domes appeared across my armor’s glowing plate, and each expertly deflected off the machine’s occult blade feathers.

Blades struck against domed occult shields, and bounced off. There was nothing to hold the deadly edges against my defense to really test my limits. The damage was negligible to my sanity, it felt more like pulling against heavy weights attached all across my body for a half second. Difficult, but not impossible. So long as I didn’t need to do this more than a few times.

The massive enemy squawked in surprise, violet eyes narrowing as it folded wings around itself like a cloak and dove down, speeding past the fanning feather blades - and then flew in front of them. Right when its own fan of feathers would have struck the machine, the wings spread out once more, halting its speed. All the feathers shook in their flight, altering direction, chasing behind the bird instead. The bird’s movements flowed like water, all those blades looking more like silver shimmering fish chasing after it, reattaching to its wings one at a time, from the closer ones to the stragglers. Minus the few blades I’d blocked earlier, those were spinning wildly out of control, down into the temple.

Gravity finally took full control over me, and I began to fall down again. Except the bird took another swing at me, wings flashing blue, and the gust of wind following behind once more juggled me back into the air, far higher than before.

Again, the bird’s wings flowed blue and it zipped past me, attempting to skewer me a second time. Because if it didn't work the first time, try and try again until the squishy human finally dies.

Need to come up with a plan against an enemy that clearly had experience fighting off Deathless targets and relic knights. Constantly disorienting its prey, before eventually cracking their shell with hundreds of needle-like feathers. Being immune to standard rifles, all the bird had to do was keep its distance from any kind of occult blade the enemy had on hand. And the size of this thing, it would take more than one good stab to kill it. Throwing a perfectly timed knife at it wouldn’t make the cut unless I got absurdly lucky.

Given enough time, the bird would eventually break past my own defenses. I’d end up another number on the list of kills it had. My hand hovered over the knightbreaker at my back, considering if I should use it this early into the fight. The bird didn’t have any kind of defense that I could see besides speed and distance. If knightbreaker rounds flew faster than it did, I could chop off a good amount of it. The cost would come down to an unrecoverable round. This far up in the air, anywhere I fired, the round would soar for a long distance and land anywhere into the temple. It’d be like trying to look for a needle in a snowpile. And I’d be down a round against To’Avalis and To’Sofit.

Can’t use the knightbreaker here. Needed another plan. The main defense it had was distance and complete control over it. Speed let it run laps around me in the air, like a fish through water and I somehow had to catch it or die trying.

Come on, think.

Can it move those occult blade Feathers in different ways? I asked Wrath, sending the rough outline of my gamble.

No. Those are magnetically locked into one orientation and a limited movement range.

I could tell she approved of the idea, good thing too. There wasn’t time to come up with a plan B.

All right, here goes.

Occult pulsed around me, and the mirror fractal flared up. I’d done this once before. I could do it again. Had to do it again. While I was getting juggled in the air, the rest of my team was fighting tooth and nail against Avalis and his forces. Time was ticking.

The wraith appeared, emerging from my armor, armshield glowing with deadly interlocked blades. Then it flew through the air, unfettered by gravity, directly at the machine bird.

It gave another squawk, and wrapped its wings around itself, spinning back down as the wraith soared above it. The machine moved like a serpent through the air, seeking another point, giving quick beats of wings to maneuver around. I’d hoped the wraith was faster than it could be, but this several hundred pound monster was moving through air like an acrobat. Outright creepy since there’s no way something this big could take turns in the air like that.

Nailing it with my wraiths would have been extra, the main meat of my plan came down to something else: If I wanted to catch a wild fish, I’d need to hook the bastard.

Falling straight down, spinning wildly, my free hand unlatched the grappling rope from my belt, taking hold of the loop with practiced hands, working as quickly as I could while keeping my focus on the occult.

Again I sent a wraith to hound after it mostly to buy myself more time. It again slipped away. At least my constant prodding with the wraiths had forced it to deal with those instead of trying to keep me helpless in the air. Slowly, I took command again of my chaotic tumbling, the turning and twisting ended, the hook and rope ready in my hand. Couldn’t be spinning around aimlessly for this next part.

The bird wasn’t used to having to dodge and weave around an enemy throwing wraiths at it. Its movements were… predictable. Kidra had done this kind of thing before. When she’d fought against To’Aacar’s ruined shell, she instantly spotted patterns of how it moved and then abused it.

Once more, another wraith split from my armor and zipped after the bird, armguard attached to the forearm, glowing bright occult blue. My hand lifted the hook up in a pitcher’s pose, Journey’s HUD lit up, trajectory set. A firing line appearing.

I lobbed the hook as if I were throwing a hangerball, launching it with relic powered speed. The metal soared through the air, whistling with fury.

The metal monster dodged the wraith I’d sent and squawked as my metal hook nailed it. Sleek as the bird looked, the mass of floating long flight feathers it had across its body made for hundreds of open spots for a thrown hook to slip in and hold fast.

The hook blessedly did exactly that. Rope went taunt and the game was on. The monster screeched in pure hatred as I flew right behind the bird. It stormed around the air, banking hard again and again to throw me off.

One grab after another, I began to close the distance to the monster, crawling up the line. Journey’s grip on the rope was unyielding. “Come here you piece of scrap,” I snarled, launching wraiths to keep it on the defensive, and away from the rope. The more time it spent trying to avoid the wraiths, the less time it had to figure out how to cut me free.

These were manufactured to hold a relic armor’s weight several times over, only an occult blade could cut them. That said, all the turns and twists were going way over what the rope makers had ever thought these would go through. Damage was accumulating, with multiple sections of the rope starting to fray. Journey kept track of the weak parts, highlighting them. Estimating when the breaking point would be reached.

It also estimated the time I’d need to reach the monster at my current pace - and luck was on my side for the first time.

The bird must have realized the same thing: I’d reach it long before the rope would snap. Panic started to take over the movements. It twisted in the air, and began a mad sprint to the main tower. It was pretty obvious to me what the gods damned bastard planned to do.

I cursed every swear word I’d ever known, including some Cathida had taught me, all the while wrapping one hand awkwardly around my back to hold Wrath’s sack as close as possible, locking the arm. I braced as best I could for impact, my other hand tugging hard against the rope, looping it around the back of my palm in a quick motion, trying to stack the odds against what would happen next.

The machine rocketed straight at the tower, and banked away at the last second, catapulting me into the tower wall like I was the mace end of a spiked chain. Journey’s shields flared up as rock broke around me, orange lit up my medical scans, even as I could see the internal organs inside me take the blunt force. Human bodies were not made to withstand going from recklessly fast to completely still in half a second.

The rope wiggled and coiled in the air, then grew taunt again as the bird raced away, still holding together in one piece. And from the cloud of pulverized tower rock, I emerged - still moving up the rope, one hand grab after another.

If it wasn’t terrified before, now it certainly was. I was a minute away from getting my foot on solid ground and taking revenge.

The wraiths flying at it like bullets kept it from slowing down to bite the rope or slice it apart. The occult feathers it had were worthless, all in the wrong area and unable to be moved individually around. Wrath's judgements were on point. The bird had all the tools it needed to cut me free, and no chance to make use of anything.

And soon it didn’t matter as my boot connected with the creature’s back despite its best attempts otherwise. My hand snaked from the rope down to grab hold of its back. It tried to go into a barrel roll, hoping to knock me loose or at least disorient me further, but Journey had held tight against a rope this whole time, now that it had even better grip and traction, the bird could do whatever it wanted, I wasn’t going to get knocked off.

“Wrong move.” I hissed and drew out my occult fencing foil. The grisly work of stabbing away at its back began, slashing the bending sword through expensive looking parts again and again.

In the throes of death, the machine tried to run back to its master, maybe hoping she’d shoot me off. And all the while I advanced up its back, getting closer to the neck one step at a time, stabbing down at every free moment I had.

The bird screeched, violet light flickering on the chassis with each stab into the body. The wings grew more rigid, until I hit something critical and they outright stopped, stretched out and let the monster glide, directly on a collision course to the central tower. Gone were the aerial acrobatics, the fluid motions. Black oil poured out of multiple deep wounds I’d given it on my single minded climb to the head. At this rate, it would crash into the side of the tower.

A stab deep into the spine at the base of its neck caused the entire monster to seize up with one last shriek of anger. I leaped forward, hand reaching out to grab the side of the immobile head, feet swinging down against the beak for stability. Relic helmet caught the seething stare of violet eyes, the apertures within the cameras deep inside narrowing down to focus on me.

My blade reached back and speared straight through, down to the hilt.

All lights on the monster instantly went dark.

One down. Now for the rest of them.

Next chapter - Interlude I (Windrunner)

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